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For some of you, there are parts to review--things you've already heard, images you've already seen--so thank you for your patience and understanding.
It's really only been a week, but I already feel I've been here a month. The various things I've seen and learned in this past week equal or surpass the amount I would typically absorb in a year's time. A language, which I had previously still viewed as foreign, now seems possible to encompass in my scope of knowledge. It becomes more beautiful and familiar to me each day. The greatest reward I've met in my years of education are the conversations I've had with my host family here: simple as they still may be, their increasing length and complexity thrills me each time.
The doorbell here is buzzing. Buzzing with the entry of each family member, the parents, their children (all older than me), the grandchildren, friends, cousins, maids...buzzing like the chatter inside the walls, the laughter, the constant activity. I am certain I was meant to spend my time in this house. It is nicer than I thought it might be. I have two cat friends that crawl in and out of my window
at night to access the roof and watch the street dogs fight at night. Sometimes I move quietly with them, like a cat, and watch the city lights from up above.
The city, too, is buzzing. Colors burst from the inside out, just as the streets burst with wild traffic and the sidewalks with bustling people. Even the sun seems to be bursting with light here, and the plants with their blossoms. There is so much for my senses to take in when I step outside that sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed too by the poverty, the condition of things; chaos seems to be the only rhyme that everyone sings along to. In order to hear this song properly, I've chosen to be without my vice of "American music" for the entire week.
With all this buzzing, bursting chaos, you'd think the city would be brimming over , unable to contain all the color and motion. But no--mountains, mountains everywhere are surrounding the city with stability, holding it in and keeping it together. I have seen many mountains before, but never as perfectly unmovable as these. They are loving arms clasped tight.
I am with
a group of thirty, all taking classes, volunteering at local establishments, and living with families. I am taking Advanced Language Practice and Hispanic Literature, with classrooms as small as five students, at the Institute of Culture, an old mansion that has been transformed into an amazing, excellent school for foreign student groups. There, we take culture workshops as well: weaving, pottery, dancing, and cooking. All Oaxaquena style. Every morning I arrive with my closest pals, Kelly and Greta, and we sit under the palm trees there, enjoying a free cup of coffee or tea from the school's kitchen and eating hand-picked mangos. It's a dream.
My volunteer program has not turned out as expected, and is nothing like any of the other students' programs--in the best way possible! Felipe is an indigenous weaver whose family owns a shop in a nearby town called Teotitlan. Another student and I were sent to help them with the processes used to clean, spin, and dye the wool. Instead, it seems Felipe has taken it upon his family to be our good friends and tour guides. The first day we visited Teotitlan, we were taken to his house where he lives with his
wife (pregnant with their first son), his brother, his brother's wife, and their two children. We were served a generous breakfast, taught how to make hand-rolled tortillas over a fire, and told that we were to consider their home our own. Mi casa es tu casa. Yep. The family has plans to show us the churches and markets of Teotitlan as well as take us on a three hour hike up the nearest mountain. Later, we were shown how to make dye out of insects, plants, and bark, and how to use a spinning wheel to make yarn out of wool.
Our group excursions have included visiting a local Mayan ruin called Monte Alban; El Arbol de Tule (The Tree of Tule), the so-said oldest/biggest known tree in the world; and Hierve el Agua, a place high and far in the mountains where hot springs and sulfur have made the rocks to look like waterfalls. Let me tell you--to swim in a spring on the edge of a mountain, only to look out and see a hundred more mountains surrounding you, completely untouched--I have rarely felt so forgiving toward every unpleasant aspect of life. And to stand in the
shade of certainly one of the largest and oldest trees in existence--to let the shadow of it swallow you, to see that each branch is larger than an average trunk...to know that it has been here since Jesus lived, that it has withstood thousands of winters and thousands of springs and thousands of adversaries...that it has pushed all else around it away, only to stay standing on this day--is humbling.
I hope you all are well and that the beginning of summer is treating you fantastically! Once again, I'd love to hear from all and any of you if you get the chance. I hope this wasn't too long or boring...I have so much to describe and choosing is difficult. I miss you all and love you!
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Jessica
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Amazing... truly amazing, and gorgeous! You made me feel like I was right there with you!! I WANT to be right there with you! I'm jealous that you get to have coffee and mangos outside in the beautiful weather there.....every morning. Enjoy one for me! (((HUGS)))